Real Redemption

by Angie Thomas

As I was looking over the study I was overwhelmed with the Lord’s unconditional love for us.  We are so blessed girls, blessed beyond what we could ask or imagine.  Psalm 32:1 says, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” We hear these words and they just pass over our hearts and ears.  We have been given the most incredible gift, a pardon for our heinous sins.  But we don’t see our sin that way.  We feel entitled to our fear and worry.  Our circumstances seem to demand our anxiety or we pass it off as part of our personality.  We excuse our control as being “productive” and our laziness as “needing a break.” And our pride, sadly most of the time we don’t even see it. And unbelief, we just call that being “realistic.” May we cry out to our Father and confess all of these sins that we commit day in and day out that break His heart but never break ours.

Our hearts are so calloused.  I know this is graphic, but it is the image the Lord laid on my heart as I was typing this. Consider a prostitute whose body has been used and abused. She becomes hardened to everything that is wrong about what she is doing. Deep down her heart is breaking and she despises the sin cycles she is caught in but she seems to see no other way out.  She is caught in the lies that life could ever be any different.

Similarly, we have prostituted our hearts to the lies of the culture and the enemy.  We see our sin as just one little white lie, one little romp through our minds with worry and fear, one little rationalization after another.  There is pleasure in the moment for sure, but afterward we are left discouraged, broken, and hurting.  We wonder if life could ever be any different.

There is a reason God dedicated the entire book of Hosea to depicting this analogy of Israel caught prostituting themselves to their sins and idols.  This was God’s charge to Israel, “For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink” (Hosea 2:5). But Hosea shows us the Father heart of God who continues to run after her even though she keeps running back to her sin. “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. …And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2:14, 19-20).

Girls, we are the prostitute.  May was see our sin as God does and run to the righteousness, love, mercy, and faithfulness He has provided for us.  May our hearts be broken before Him.  Psalm 51:17 gives us this powerful promise: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Real redemption is waiting.